Abstract: In the days following Hurricane Katrina, the media portrayed the people inside
New Orleans as a threat rather than a population in need. It was looters, in particular, who
were portrayed in this deviant light and they were well publicized in the media coverage
in Katrina’s aftermath. However, sociological research is limited in terms of examining
looting, especially in the wake of a disaster. This research explores how looters were
socially constructed after Hurricane Katrina within three prominent US newspapers: The
New York Times, The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune.

This research addresses three questions. First, how have Hurricane Katrina
looters been framed by the news media? Second, how have Hurricane Katrina looters
been differentially framed by these three powerful continuum of voices? Lastly, were
media frames of perceived Katrina looters instrumental in re-establishing social order?

Based on a frame analysis of newspaper articles in The
New York Times, The Washington Post and Chicago Tribune, four primary looting frames emerged: property
crime, lawlessness, policing, and race. The extracted looting frames provide insight into
how the media portrayed those who looted after Hurricane Katrina. The unfolding of the
analysis told a unique sociological story by bringing the New Orleans looter to life.

The underlying idea of the looter after Katrina took on an ill-famed or villainous
tone. According to media reports, looters vandalized, ran wild among the city and
required “tough policing” in order to contain their behavior. It was the media that served
as a social force that helped create and move these ideas about looting.

The portrayal of the looter in this light becomes of great importance in the
moment after a disaster takes place: the moment in which society realizes that utter chaos
has replaced the normal social order. It is at this time when people pull together and set
aside their differences. However, this warm and fuzzy feeling of wanting to pull together
as one does not sustain itself for long. After Katrina, it was the claims of looting that
broke this romanticized feeling of social justice for all. Looting rumors at this time
contribute to the re-establishment of social order or in another way, bring back old
societal order. This is accomplished because looters are a way of establishing us (the
good guys) and them (the bad guys) once again in a time in which all social order is for a
moment lost. In other words, singling out the looter becomes a way to make sense of the
chaos; brings back stratification; brings back something that is familiar and maybe even
comforting to those that hold more power in society. Claims of looting were powerful in
this way because it was based on the age old struggle between the “haves” and “havenots.”